David vs Goliath: Peruvian peasant takes on mining giant

An illiterate peasant farmer from Yanacocha in Peru is making waves as the face of resistance against US mining giant Newmont and its plans to expand South America’s largest open-pit gold mine. Maxima Acuna de Chaupe, 48, who lives with her family in a small farm on the land where the mine is to be sited has been fighting Newmont in a court battle that is getting increasingly tense and heated. The firm is facing widespread opposition to the $4.8-billion gold- and copper-mining project from the local community and the regional government of Cajamarca in northern Peru, which says the mine expansion will put the water supply at risk.

What counts here are documents. Let them show their documents! If they’re the owners, let them present the bill of sale, the document with my signature that says I sold this land.

Maxima Acuna de Chaupe, a Peruvian peasant farmer who is suing mining giant Newmont

Since 2011, the mining company has had to suspend prospecting in the region over concerns about the environmental impact of its plans to drain the area’s high-altitude lagoons and replace them with artificial reservoirs. Her fight has brought new attention to the conflicts between Peru’s indigenous communities and mining companies that extract the country’s natural resources, its main source of wealth. According to the government mediator for such cases, 140 environmental conflicts were registered last month alone. This week a 25-year-old villager died in clashes between police and protesters fighting oil company operations in the Amazon. The protest in the central village of Pichanaki came on the second day of a strike targeting oil operations that local people fear will contaminate rivers and soil.

They want to make me leave by force. They see that I’m poor, that I don’t know how to read and they think I can’t stand up for my rights. But I have my documents. I’ve got no reason to be humiliated or afraid.

Maxima Acuna de Chaupe

Americas